Did UCLA's Craft throw away starting job?

BERKELEY -- The main thing that kept Kevin Craft from losing his starting quarterback job earlier this season was a lack of alternatives.

After Craft's four-interception performance in Saturday's 41-20 loss at Cal, the Bruins coaches started dropping hints that those alternatives are beginning to look tempting.

Coach Rick Neuheisel said the quarterback position will be "under evaluation" during the Bruins' bye week that starts Monday.

"To me, it looks like he had just made up his mind and was throwing the ball where he thought it had to go. I don't know that he was using his eyes as much," Neuheisel said. "But it's difficult to make those assertions without studying tape."

Craft entered Saturday with the worst passer-efficiency rating in the conference and it won't be improved by a 17-for-35 effort with no touchdown passes.

Actually, Craft threw two touchdown passes, both to Cal defenders.

Redshirt freshman Chris Forcier would be the next in line. Neuheisel said freshman Kevin Prince will continue to redshirt. Forcier played the final 4:45 and completed 1 of 5 passes, a touchdown to Dominique Johnson.

The Bruins haven't seen enough poise from Forcier to believe he would be a better option than Craft, but his running ability could get him on the field more in the final four games.

"I think he's not sure of himself at times when he's throwing the ball," offensive coordinator Norm Chow said. "He's a very good athlete. Maybe we share the time, I don't know."

Forcier said he was trying to learn from Craft's mistakes, "so it doesn't happen to me."

Neuheisel indicated Forcier and the rest of UCLA's bench players have not done an adequate job learning from the sideline.

"You wish guys would be able to glean the experience without actually having to go out there and play, but that's not been the case so far," he said. "We're not a very adept vicarious-learning team."

NOT DEEP ENOUGH

If there was one turning point Saturday, it was the failed fake punt with 9:57 left in the fourth quarter.

Punter Aaron Perez completed a 22-yard pass to Courtney Viney, but the Bruins needed 23 yards. On the next play, Cal struck with a 53-yard touchdown pass off a flea-flicker, the beginning of a fourth-quarter landslide.

Perez said the fault was shared between him and his blocker, John Hale. Because of Cal's punt-return formation, Hale made the call. Perez decided to go through with it even though UCLA's plan calls for it only when the team needs 10 yards or fewer.

"I guess John and I were unfortunately on the same page, because we just wanted to make a play and didn't realize it was fourth-and-18 (sic)," Perez said. "That's a really far throw for what we do."

NOTES

Terrence Austin nearly broke his own team record when he returned a fourth-quarter kick 82 yards. It gave him 202 kickoff return yards in the game, 3 behind the mark he set against Fresno State. …

Fullback Trevor Theriot (Newport Harbor High) spent more than two hours on the operating table Friday. His father, Brian, reported that the procedure, in which doctors used a patella tendon to reconstruct his torn anterior cruciate ligament, was a success. Theriot is expected to begin running in 31/2 months and to be ready for non-contact drills in time for spring football. …

Backup defensive tackle Jerzy Siewierski left the game with a lower-back strain, but the Bruins otherwise emerged with no other injuries.